US Dept. of Justice inspector general finds ‘serious deficiencies,’ ‘alarming’ staff shortages at Sheridan federal prison

(Update: Oregon Democratic lawmakers demand 'swift action' to address issues)

WASHINGTON (KTVZ) -- U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz announced Wednesday the release of an inspection of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Federal Correctional Institution Sheridan, a men’s prison in Oregon with an adjacent male detention center and minimum-security prison camp. 

The onsite inspection, which occurred from November 27 to December 1, 2023, was the third unannounced inspection under the DOJ Office of the Inspector General’s new BOP inspections program. 

The DOJ OIG inspection identified several serious operational deficiencies at FCI Sheridan, according to a news release that continues in full below. 

"Among the most concerning were the alarming staffing shortages among health care workers and Correctional Officers," they said.

Their findings include:

• Healthcare Worker Shortages Affect the Delivery of Healthcare to Inmates.  Specifically, we found that, due to staff vacancies in the Health Services Department, the institution had a backlog of 725 laboratory orders for blood draws or urine collection and 274 pending x-ray orders at the time of our inspection. These backlogs cause medical conditions to go undiagnosed and leave providers unable to appropriately treat their patients.  
• High Correctional Officer Vacancy Rate Affects Inmate Monitoring and Operations. We found that institution management was not always able to fill all inmate-monitoring posts and therefore lacks the employees it needs to safely supervise inmates.  As a result, inmates must routinely be confined to their cells during daytime hours and are therefore often unable to participate in programs and recreational activities.  As we have detailed in our prior work, including our recent report on inmate deaths in custody, when inmates are not appropriately monitored the chance that they will engage in self-harm, violence, and other illicit activities increases.  We also found that, due to substantial staffing shortages, FCI Sheridan did not always have available Correctional Officers to escort inmates to external medical providers.
• Psychology Services Department and Education Department Staffing Shortages Resulted In Significant Wait Times For Inmate Programs.  We found that serious shortages among drug treatment program employees, prevented the institution from offering its Residential Drug Treatment Program (RDAP) to inmates at the minimum-security camp.  We also found long waitlists, some exceeding over 500 names, for other trauma-related mental health, anger management, and work skills classes.
• FCI Sheridan did not centrally track the number of all allegations of inmate-on-inmate sexual misconduct reported to employees.  The failure to accurately track these allegations undermines the ability of both FCI Sheridan and the BOP to collect data consistent with Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) standards that would allow them to assess and improve the effectiveness of sexual misconduct prevention efforts.

"Most of the significant issues we found at FCI Sheridan were consistent with findings the OIG has made in other recent BOP oversight work, which we have reported on publicly.  We did not make recommendations in this report because in our prior work we have recommended that the BOP address many of these issues at an enterprise level. 

In monitoring the BOP’s efforts to address those recommendations at all of its institutions, we will track the actions the BOP takes at FCI Sheridan."

The report can be found on the OIG’s website.

To accompany the report, the OIG has released a 3-minute video of the Inspector General discussing the report’s findings. 

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News release Friday from Senator Ron Wyden:

Following Horrific Findings at FCI Sheridan, Oregon Lawmakers Demand Federal Bureau of Prisons Address Staffing Shortages and Other Alarming Risks

Washington, D.C. – Oregon’s congressional delegation—U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, alongside U.S. Reps. Earl Blumenauer, Suzanne Bonamici, Andrea Salinas, and Val Hoyle — today demanded the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Director take swift action to address staffing shortages, inmate medical needs, and other alarming issues that put staff and inmates at risk. 

The lawmakers wrote BOP Director Colette Peters after findings were issued this week from the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General following two unannounced visits to the Federal Correctional Institute in Sheridan, Oregon (FCI Sheridan). The Inspector General report revealed serious concerns about staffing levels, which left inmates untreated for serious medical conditions, locked in their cells for longer periods of time than appropriate, and without access to re-entry programs. In addition, employee misconduct investigations have taken more than 1.5 years to complete, and the prison has failed to track all reports of inmate-on-inmate sexual misconduct. 

The lawmakers wrote in their letter: “While we appreciate FCI Sheridan has enacted some changes in response to this report, we are concerned your written response to DOJ OIG’s report does not effectively answer many of the troubling questions raised. Taken together, these deficiencies showcase a comprehensive failure by leadership at FCI Sheridan and BOP to protect both inmates and prison staff.”

The full text of the letter is here.